Monday, October 17, 2011

Spotlight on an Abilene Resident: Roy Baker

The following was written by Bill Jeffcoat about Roy Baker and the Baker Hatchery:

This is Roy Baker, hatchery man, chicken fancier, with a hatchery building in the back end of his house in the 300 block of NE 6th Street. His wife Bertha was the daughter of J.L. Kruger, a prominent builder of Abilene buildings.

In depression days, even town people raised chickens in town for eggs and eating. If you bought a bag of baby chick mash, Roy would give you twenty-five baby chicks free.

This photo of Roy, which is not really the normal way he dressed, is the way he desired this photo. With Abilene’s Wild West Days and the Fair parade, all businessmen were supposed to do this.

From the 1940s this ad is from the paper. Whoever dreamed this up was very clever; the baby chick with a head piece and then the slogan: “Let me help make dough for you.”